Happy Feet

You keep stating this as some launch pad justification that people on the right can't be seen but it is an excellent example of misreading facts to fit your aim.

Basically, if 99% of people ride mostly to the right and 1% take the lane and if only a small percent of all those have accidents, the fact that lane takers don't show up in stats does not mean it is in any way safer. It just means the incident is so fractionally small as to be statistically insignificant and probably eliminated as an outlier.

That's an unpleasant reality you tend to avoid discussing it seems.

Happy Feet

Excellent points and I agree. Accident, by definition, is something one did not expect to happen either by act of god or poor judgement.

Now. Looking through that list; how many examples could lead a driver to plow into a person directly in their path while taking the lane. In the US alone there are aprox. 1.7 million rear end collisions annually and many probably result from some combination of the conditions listed above along with others not listed. I posited this potential risk earlier but was incredibly assured by the OP that it would never occur to him. Well to be fair I'll quote the exact dismissal:

That's the logic his advocacy is based upon.

mcours2006

Just what exactly do you think my avatar is? And I'm the one who needs to get his mind out of the gutter. Sure.

Happy Feet

French raceways are sexy non?

mcours2006

Mais oui!

Ninety5rpm

My belief that cyclists using the full lane are more conspicuous and less likely to be hit than edge riders is based on personal observation, experience, and analysis and reasoning of my own and that of others, not on non-existent statistics.

If you believe that cyclists using the full lane are more likely to be hit than edge riders, what is your belief based on?

And I'm happy to discuss all this. That's why I created this thread.

Ninety5rpm

How often are slow moving (not stopped) vehicles rear ended?

I-Like-To-Bike

How often are motor vehicles (not large farm vehicles or construction equipment) "slow moving (not stopped)" no faster than typical bicycling speeds on streets and roads that have speed limits of 35+mph? Only time I have ever seen that (except for blizzard conditions) in over 54 years of driving is when cars are limping along with a flat tire or some other obvious mechanical problem and in every case the motorist had enough sense to stay as far right as possible and away from moving traffic.

A motorist traveling at 15mph for any distance on a street/road with a much higher speed limit and believe that he is not being a fool would have to be an obtuse fool.

Happy Feet

Just the common sense notion that if you camp out in the lanes where those 1.7million accidents occur there is a probable chance you may become one of them. No matter how much you delude yourself into thinking you can control traffic somehow you are still susceptible to the same random events that all other traffic is exposed to. In fact, visibility itself of the vehicle ahead probably does not play a part in the mechanism of how some/many of those rear end collisions occur. Otherwise, why would people rear end bus's and semi trucks.

jonc123

I take the sidewalk, I take the lane, I take the MUP, I take the parking lot. I do what I do to stay alive. I love sidewalks. I dream about them at night.

Ninety5rpm

Plenty of construction equipment has a max speed of 15 mph or lower.

Ninety5rpm

Okay, which is why I don't merely "camp out in the the lanes" - because of the remote chance that I'll be overlooked and hit. That's why I use control and release enhanced with mirror use.

Happy Feet

One might think by that reasoning that 1.7 million drivers chose to be otherwise struck.

Ninety5rpm

Not following. Anyway, the vast majority of those are in stop and go traffic. Almost none of those involve collisions where the rear-ended vehicle is moving. It's a red herring statistic.

Happy Feet

Tsk tsk. You might have us believe you've now analyzed 1.7 million annual accidents.

Amazing...

It's like you claim all the postives of behaving like a vehicle occupying a lane but exempt yourself from any of the negatives.

It borders on magical thinking really.

genec

Great, now just how does CyclingSavvy reach people on bikes, and just what sort of percent of folks out there on bikes have been so trained?

Or is this yet another "tupperware party" sort of system that depends on word of mouth, and limited trainers...
that the public frankly has no clue about?

Paul Barnard

The data to determine what actually is safe relative to vehicles coming from behind just doesn't exist. I read as much as I can about bicycle/auto crashes and lane position is very rarely known or reported.

mr_bill

So, tens and tens of savvy people on bikes is "many" but thousands and thousands of moving rear-end crashes is "almost none?"

You didn't even bother to just look on youtube at rear end crash compilations before saying something so ridiculous?


People driving cars run into the back of other people driving cars. Even when everyone is moving. A *LOT* of "stop and go" traffic is slow and go traffic. Like this boring video by Nick. (Spoiler alert - nothing happens, and Nick's Tesla rarely stops.)


And there are a *LOT* of crashes, not accidents, during slow and go traffic.

Speed differential and unsafe following distance and inattentiveness may lead to rear end crashes. No matter if the lead vehicle is stopped or moving.

Roads with both maximum speed limits *AND* minimum speed limits are a clue about ONE of the ways to minimize rear end crashes with moving vehicles on high speed roads.

Right exits are another clue.


Maybe in Tempe they put 15 mph construction vehicles, unescorted, on the highways?

In the rest of the country escort convoys are used to shepherd slow moving construction equipment and oversize loads, with truck mounted impact attenuators mounted on the back of rear-most slow moving equipment. Often they move such vehicles WITH THE ROAD CLOSED.


I suspect that you don't get a lot of snow your way, but MANY people crash into the back of snow plows in these parts. Just plowing along. Their lane position - the WHOLE FREAKIN' ROAD! With BIG BRIGHT BLINKY LIGHTS.

And the worst argument about rear end crashes and moving vehicles - NASCAR.

-mr. bill

wphamilton

Someone questioned how often a slow moving vehicle is rear-ended. I found reference to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute research commissioned by the NHTSA. I didn't find the study itself, but the reported answer is:

"About 81 percent of rear-end accidents occurred when the lead vehicle was completely stopped", so about 19 percent were moving.

Also driver distraction accounts for 90% of them, and the majority were on straight level roads in the daytime.

If all this is true, then being more visible by being in front of them would not have helped in the 90% cases of distraction, and moving rather than stopped is not helpful enough to rely on.

Anecdotally I have witnessed a number of rear-end collisions on my local streets, the majority of them at lights (in line with this study), and almost all of them looked like someone plowing into another vehicle for no apparent reason. Though rare, the incidents are still too frequent to risk one's life over which is why my own policy is to establish lane position only in cases of necessity.

I-Like-To-Bike

So what? That is not the issue.
I suppose an obtuse operator of such equipment might drive down the highway for long distances and not stay as far right as possible, though I have never seen it. Usually such equipment is hauled to/from the work site on a flat bed trailer.

I suppose that there are obtuse motor vehicle operators (or bicyclists) that cannot discern the difference in conspicuity (a buzzword of the take the lane types) between large construction equipment and a bicycle when on a road, but I have only read about such obtuseness on BF.

Paul Barnard

I ask these question not for the sake of argument but for discussion. How many of those crashes would have occurred had it been a bicycle two feet left of the fog line? Obviously nobody knows. Other than not being on the road at all, there's no protection from deeply distracted drivers. But that's not a complete picture. There are partially distracted drivers. The glance up, glance down type. Will a center lane position draw their attention where a 2 feet off the fog line position won't? Will bright colors draw their attention? Will a center lane position as they near the crest of a blind hill or as they near a blind bend dissuade a potentially disastrous pass where a 2 feet off the fog line would tend to invite a bad pass? We can only guess.

Bear in mind these questions are coming from a rider who is most likely to be about two feet off the fog line most of the time he rides. My belief is that we don't have the data to support that any position is any safer than the other. I employ a cocktail of strategies that are dependent upon the whole of the circumstances. Militantly taking and holding the lane is never one of them.

Paul Barnard

On another note, that 81 percent figure seemed high. I looked for a cite for the specific study on the legal firms page and didn't see it. I did a little Google work and came up with this from the NHTSA.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.do...8102084629.pdf

"Of the 7,024
observed rear-end events, 45 percent involved a decelerating lead vehicle, 38 percent involved a
stopped lead vehicle"

The study didn't say how many of those stopped vehicles had just come to a sudden stop either, but I suspect most. So the notion that drivers most often plow into vehicles that are stopped and have been stopped is misguided. It happens sure.

gregf83 

That report was on a 100 car study. The 7,024 'events' were not rear end collisions. Only 24 were for crashes. The vast majority of the 7024 events were classified as 'incidents' where the subject or any other vehicle had to brake or take some other evasive action to avoid a collision: 'A crash avoidance response can include braking, steering, accelerating, or any combination of control inputs.'

So not really a definitive study on rear end collisions.

Regardless, I think the point is if vehicles have trouble seeing other vehicles in their lane they will also have trouble seeing a bicycle.

wphamilton

From the Executive Summary, " Rear-end collisions in which the lead vehicle is stopped or moving very
slowly prior to the crash account for the majority of these crashes. "

It's probably due to putting a fine distinction between moving very slowly and stopped, which I don't think is helpful. Whether it's 81% or a majority or 38%, the fact that the vehicle is moving or stopped isn't making enough difference to stake your life on.

In another section that study, referring to some other research analyzing braking data, claims that "59% involved a stopped lead vehicle". So FWIW it's not misguided at all that they plow into stopped vehicles.

What this means for us is that, if a majority or even a large portion of rear-end collisions of vehicles are with stopped or slowly moving cars and trucks, then the whole idea that putting a bike there lowers the chance of rear-end collisions is misguided. Assuming that it's easier to notice a car in front of you than a smaller bicycle, which is intuitively true.

Paul Barnard

How many of those stopped vehicles had just come to an abrupt stop? I am trying to complete 95s thoughts as I understand them. What I'll do at this point is step out and let him take the more accurate information I provided and speak to it.